


Postlude

by HerenorThereNearnorFar



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Jasperedemption, No plot really just characters interacting, Or the start of it, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7863568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerenorThereNearnorFar/pseuds/HerenorThereNearnorFar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vidalia has to give Jasper the Talk, Quartzes stew over their emotional issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postlude

**Author's Note:**

> Look I just wanted more of Amethyst and Jasper, not even doing anything, just sniping at one another. Plus Jasper reacting to humans. So, undetailed, vague, semi-redemption where people have to work together and try to explain things and are both very tired and cranky. Unedited and non concise.

Jasper looked angry, that alone wasn’t anything to comment about. Jasper was always angry these days. She was looking at the houseess around them with a worrying amount of rage though, and Amethyst felt the need to intervene.

“Hey, Jas,” she said lightly, “What part of earth do you hate this time?”

Jasper sneered. Amethyst was pretty sure she was taking long steps out of pure spite, Amethyst had to jog just to keep ahead. “Humans,” she said, distaste crystal clear (pun intended) on her face. “They’re everywhere.”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?”

Jasper’s face screwed up as she tried to communicate her feelings with something other than violence. It was clearly hard for her. “..... They’re so fragile. Barely worth anything. I can’t believe-” her voice cracked and Amethyst winced.

 _I can’t believe Rose killed Pink Diamond for this_. she mentally finished the sentence, then winced again. Dealing with Jasper inevitably meant dealing with things Amethyst wasn’t even around for, and a war she was too young to really understand. But deal she must, if they wanted Jasper’s help with the other Diamonds. They couldn’t afford to waste any resource, even an unstable, barely healed from corruption, barely on their side warrior gem.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you fit right in.” Jasper said casually, with just enough of a sidelong glance down at Amethyst to check if the comment hit home. Amethyst punched her in the thigh.

“Rude. But I’ll try to take it as a compliment. Humans are great. They just go with the flow, roll with the punches. They’re so flexible.” She knew she almost sounded like Rose, waxing eloquent about humanity’s spirit and strength. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

Jasper scoffed. “They’re breakable.”

“Yikes, sis. It’s like you’re asking for Stevonnie to kick you in the face again.”

Amethyst waited for the little huff of air that meant she had scored a point. Jasper slowed down slightly, like sheer anger was weighing down her steady footsteps. “That’s different. That abomination has Rose Quartz’s gem. I don’t know how-”

Amethyst cut her off. “That’s why I brought you down here to begin with,” she said, feeling as prissy as Pearl in the face of Jasper’s….. overall Jasper-ness. “So pipe down with the whole hating humans thing, you’ll offend- Vidalia!” she shrieked.

Vidalia straightened up and wiped her hands on the front of her coverall. “Amethyst!” she shouted, “What are you doing down here? I haven’t seen you in weeks!”

There was a tarp spread out on the front lawn of Vidalia’s house, and she was standing on it, barefoot and in paint stained clothes. Canvases were strewn around her feet along with cans of spray paint and a singular scribbling Onion. Art was clearly afoot.

“Things have been busy.” Amethyst bit her lip, a little shy in the face of Vidalia’s still infectious good cheer. Then she remembered Jasper.

“What is this?” Jasper demanded, in the tone of someone promised month old lasagna and given fresh kale instead. Amethyst tried to forgive her, arrogance was all she had now.

Being the bigger gem morally was felt surprisingly good. “Jasper, this is Vidalia, she’s human and she’s my friend. Vidalia, this is Jasper, and she’s _awful_.”

“She looks like you.” Vidalia gave Amethyst a questioning look, gentler than Jasper’s constant angry queries. “Are you two…. the same?”

Amethyst kicked the ground. “Kind of. It’s complicated. We’re sort of like, cousins, I think? Except not.” She shrugged. “Gem stuff.”

Vidalia nodded, accepting the complete non-explanation with grace. “So, what brings you down this way?” she asked, and Amethyst remembered her rather pressing mission.

“Oh! Right. Vidalia, do you remember all those years ago when I asked you how you got Sour Cream and you explained it to me? Jasper is new to how humans work. Like, really, really new, and I need you to explain things to her.”

Jasper crossed her arms and in general looked like an awful potential pupil in the ways of squishy human things, but Amethyst thought that underneath the prickliness and the fragility of the newly un-corrupted there was a gleam of curiosity in her eyes.

She’d finally managed to accept that Steven wasn’t Rose and that Rose was for all intents and purposes dead, which was for the best because otherwise Jasper would have killed her. But she didn’t know how Steven had, well, happened, and Amethyst knew getting her in the loop was pretty important if this whole teamwork thing was going to last. Somebody had to clue Jasper in as to how babies were made, and they had to do it well.

Vidalia made a sucking noise. “That’s a big order. Why don’t you have Greg do it?”

Amethyst made an uncertain hand motion. “We didn’t know if he had the tact, or the nerve. And nobody else could do it.” Jasper still didn’t take most of them seriously. “I mean, I see that you’re busy, so maybe we could dig up some old books or something….” she trailed off and hoped Vidalia’s big heart would come through.

“Is this a fate of the earth kind of situation?” Vidalia asked, and Amethyst could hear her caving.

“Yeah, kinda. Big J over here is, uh, complicated. Also she kind of thinks Steven is his mother.”

Jasper grumbled something. Her posture was a little too rigid and the mottling pattern on her skin, the remnant of her corruption, looked like mold spreading over food, and not in a fun way. Amethyst started to wonder if she should have even taken her out of the temple, even if Garnet had okayed it. Vidalia gave Jasper a once over and seemed to come to a similar conclusion. No matter how large and angry, she didn’t actually seem like much of a threat.

“Far be it from me to second guess the defenders of the universe,” she said with a smile, and Amethyst mirrored it, relieved. “Lemme clean all this up and we’ll go inside. Onion, clean up time!”

“Do you want to sit down?” Amethyst asked Jasper in a whisper. “Drink a Gatorade or something?”

Jasper shook her head, the movement too jerky for Amethyst’s tastes. But she let it be and went to go help Vidalia, leaving her not-sister gem on the curb.

Onion was trying to eat the paint.

Amethyst was pretty sure that wasn’t healthy for kids, so she held out a hand. “Give it, kiddo,” she said in the voice she had used when Steven was a baby. He reluctantly handed it over and she tossed the tube of finger paint over to Vidalia’s pile. Vidalia grinned.

“Never thought I’d see you telling someone not to put something in their mouth,” she joked.

“Maybe I’ve matured,” Amethyst told her, half joking as well. “Plus I figured letting your kid get sick would be a bad way to get you to do this favor for me.”

Vidalia held up the paint bottle. “Childsafe. I’m pretty sure you can make soup out of this stuff.”

“Oh.”

They finished cleaning up in silence. Vidalia bundled up the paint and stencils and dragged them over to the garage and Amethyst carried canvases to the porch to dry, then helped Vidalia fold up the tarp. Vidalia winked at her over the kissing folds of heavy cloth though, so Amethyst didn’t feel like as much of a failure as she usually did when conversations trailed off awkwardly.

They wrestled the tarp into a corner of the over crowded garage and Amethyst allowed herself a grin as Vidalia dusted off her hands. It was nice to finally have some time to breathe and the clutter of Vidalia’s house felt almost as comforting as her own room. The last few days had been wild.

Outside, Onion had discovered Jasper.

He was tangled in her hair like a burr, small face solemn as he tried to free himself. Jasper twisting frantically definitely wasn’t helping. It looked like the kid had snuck up behind Jasper and tried to clamber onto her shoulders, for whatever reason Onion did things for.

Amethyst laughed out loud. “Aww. he likes you!”

“Get her off!” Jasper said, gruff voice creeping a little higher with what might have been panic on anyone else.

“Him.” Amethyst corrected gently. “Humans have all sorts of fancy pronouns and gender and stuff.”

“Don't move,” Vidalia warned, holding back giggles herself. “Let’s see if we can get him out.”

Jasper stilled obediently- like a born soldier- and Vidalia went to extricate her son. Amethyst watched with barely contained glee as Jasper fidgeted and Vidalia worked to untangle the mess Onion had made of her hair. Amethyst had grown up, become the better gem, yadda yadda, but there was still something karmic about watching Jasper suffer in small, human ways.

Amethyst bent over and patted the Earth appreciatively. “Nice job on the tough love, momma.” she whispered.

Vidalia finally freed Jasper from Onion’s unyielding embrace and perched him on her hip as the big gem took a hasty step back. Jasper carded her fingers through her hair.

“That creature is horrible.”

Vidalia clicked her tongue. “Lay off my kid,” she said mildly. “I see what Amethyst meant, you are a piece of work. Why don’t you guys come inside?”

Jasper looked at Amethyst helplessly.

“You need to know how humans work,” Amethyst reminded her. “Otherwise you’re going to be stressing about Rose forever.” It felt weird to talk about Rose like that, like it was a good thing that she had disappeared forever, and Amethyst swallowed a lump in her throat. Jasper saw things differently from the Crystal Gems, she reminded herself. They couldn’t change that in a day.

“Rose was Greg’s big pink girlfriend, right?” Vidalia asked, and Amethyst nodded absently. “Now she was a strange one, no offense. Always kind of put me on edge.”

Amethyst bristled and felt her hair stand up a little straighter, but Jasper relaxed so Amethyst decided to trust Vidalia’s people skills.

“Come in,” Vidalia invited again, and Jasper stepped toward the door.

 

 

 

She looked so out of place in Vidalia’s living room, practically curled in a ball to fit on the couch. No wonder Jasper didn’t like human houses, aside from her deepset gem supremacism they weren’t built for her.

Vidalia had dug some bad leftovers out of the fridge for Amethyst and then run upstairs to get all her long forgotten pregnancy stuff, baby books and pictures and stuff, Amethyst assumed. She’d only gotten a little bit of the whole pregnancy thing through Rose, and humans always made things more complicated. Not that she minded, the more physical evidence the better the chance Jasper would actually believe it.

Onion was sitting on the floor crushing up crackers and Jasper looked at both of them in disgust.

“How can you do that to yourself?”

“Werly eshuhlee.” Amethyst said, around a mouthful of old meatloaf. She swallowed and tried again. “Really easily. You just shapeshift a-”

“I do not want to know.” Jasper growled.

“Man, you’re almost as much of a prude as Pearl is.” Amethyst told her, which made Jasper glower. “Eating is fun! You get to do new things with your body, feel new things. It’s an adventure with every bite!”

“Easy for you to say. You can’t fulfill you intended purpose so you have to find other things to do. All I need to do is fight for my diamond.”

Amethyst’s patience broke. “It’s like nothing has even changed! You got corrupted, got healed, fought with us, and you’re still the same stupid, stubborn jerk! You just want to fight different people! Your stupid diamond is dead, Rose is dead, it’s been like a hundred thousand years! You’re going to finish defending the honour of some shiny shattered Homeworld _brat_ who probably never cared about you, and then what?”

So much for being the bigger gem. Amethyst had always worked best small anyways.

“How dare you,” Jasper hissed, trying to stand and banging her head against the ceiling hard enough to leave a dent. “You know nothing of true loyalty, nothing about anything. You’re still a deformed Kindergarten reject, empty headed and useless as a human. You might as well be one of them.”

“I wish! At least then I could stop dealing with you, you clod!”

Onion mumbled something negative sounding in Jasper’s direction and Amethyst laughed, spitefully, “You tell her, Onion.”

The atmosphere was not exactly pleasant when Vidalia returned, her arms full of books and pictures and even a video tape.

“Scooch over,” she ordered Amethyst and plopped down on the couch in between her and Jasper. The stuff was dropped on the coffee table. Jasper looked at it skeptically.

“So, how much do you know about humans?” Vidalia asked, stretching an arm across the back of the couch. Amethyst took advantage of the opening to snuggle closer into Vidalia’s side, like she had at concerts and parties years ago. A little human contact was just what she needed right now.

“Organic lifeforms, indigenous to Earth, lives are tied to their physical form, short lifespan,” Jasper recited as if by rote, and without any insults, which was almost a victory.

“Ohhh-kay. That’s not a lot to work with,” Vidalia said. She glanced at Amethyst, “And gems don’t……?”

“Nu-uh.”

“Not even to…….?”

“We pop out of the ground fully grown, remember?" Amethyst reminded Vidalia's armpit. She smelled like aerosol and canvases, like Vidalia. 

“Huh. Sounds interesting, I guess”

“How are humans made?” Jasper asked with a note of suspicion, like she half suspected this was all some big joke being played out.

“See Onion?” Amethyst nodded at the little boy playing on the carpet. With the carpet, really, carefully unraveling it string by string.

“The small human shaped thing?”

“He is human, stupid. Humans start out really, really small. They live in other humans for a while to grow, and then they pop out and grow even more until they’re all done. Onion’s just a kid, but he’ll be as big as Vidalia, someday.” Amethyst thought she’d done a good job of explaining it, and Jasper looked revolted rather than disbelieving, which she was counting as a win.

Vidalia passed her a picture, faded with age. “Here, see? This is my older son, Sour Cream, right after he was born. He was a small baby, maybe seven pounds. Now he’s taller than I am.”

Jasper inspected it carefully. “Humans incubate on the surface?” she asked, and it took Amethyst a second to translate the words out of crisp scientific Homeworld speak into normal people language.

“Yeah, and they get to live and stuff while they do it. Pretty dope, right?”

“I found a picture I nicked from Greg too, of Steven when he was a baby.” Vidalia said, scrabbling through the pile to find it. She seemed to be dealing with Jasper by talking a lot. “Steven’s still growing himself, you know? With those parents of his I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out tall as well.”

Steven just looked like a blurry pink blob with dark hair. Amethyst could sense Jasper’s disbelief.

“Like we said,” she reminded her, “Steven is half human, he just got Rose’s gem. His body and his brain, where human thoughts start, I guess, they’re all human.”

Jasper grunted, acknowledging that this had been said to her, and that she couldn’t argue with it. Steven was not Rose, that much was clear. That didn’t mean she had to believe them on the particulars.

Vidalia snatched a book entitled “How Was I Made?” from the pile. Jasper stared at it blankly and Amethyst remembered too late that she probably couldn’t read English. Luckily there were colourful probably simplified pictures made to look like kids drawings. Vidalia cracked it open with the air of a woman on a mission.

“Okay, so human bodies are made out of cells, which are like tiny building blocks. Inside the every cell is the code to make more cells.”

“Injector data.” Jasper interjected.

“Yeah, whatever that means. So, humans grow up and their cells make more cells over time.”

Jasper pursed her lips. “Where do you get the necessary minerals and energy?” she asked, all business.

“Disgusting organic food.” Amethyst said, and burped for effect. Vidalia chuckled. Jasper snapped out of her temporary trace of information induced tolerability to glare.

“So, babies happen when two human cells combine and mix up all their information, making a new cell that has completely different, unique injector data, or whatever.”

“They have no intended purpose then.” Jasper stated. Amethyst felt her nose wrinkle up with anger. It always came back to this with Jasper.

She stood up and mouthed, _'Gonna raid the fridge,'_ to Vidalia, who nodded because she was probably the best friend ever.

As she left the room she could hear Vidalia say, “I mean, their purpose is to grow up. Live. Make more humans.”

Amethyst tried to block out what Jasper said next, but she would have bet an entire trash pile it involved the words, “stupid planet” or “useless”.

She needed to shove some food in her face, concentrate on something else. Digesting was always a good distraction. She couldn’t get dragged into the cycle of hating Jasper again. It would be super hard to handle with Jasper actually sort of on their side, and besides, she’d grown beyond that.

The problem was, gems didn’t grow.

She found the compost bowl and poured it down her gullet, not even taking the time to enjoy the crackle of eggshells and the heavy taste of coffee grounds. Then she moved onto the trash which provided a carton of expired cream cheese, and a half eaten vegan sandwich, thank you, Sour Cream. She thought about scrounging up some dish soap, but it always left a weird taste in her mouth unless she chased it with something. The sandwich was a good thing to end on, the soggy bread tasting of tomato juice and the sweetness of pickles.

Food made her feel grounded, made her feel human, and she took no small pride in that. Pearl and Garnet would only eat once in a blue moon and then grudgingly, Peridot couldn’t shapeshift and just chewed stuff up and spat it out, Lapis and Jasper acted like it was completely inconceivable. Food was Amethyst’s alone. The Gem Who Could Chow Down wasn’t much of a title but it was hers.

She could hear Jasper and Vidalia talking in the living room in short, halting sentences. It was a little much to expect Jasper to act right so soon after her ordeal. Her life had been different, so different Amethyst couldn’t imagine it.

But would it kill her to crack a smile once in awhile, or act like something other than a complete jerk?

To her surprise, the scene in the living room where she reentered wasn’t that tense. Vidalia had her bare, paint splashed feet up on the coffee table and Onion had climbed up to sit with her. Jasper’s head was bent, her fair hair falling in her face as Vidalia talked at her.

“Like I said, I’ve had two kids. I watched Greg bring Steven home with him, saw him grow up in bits and pieces. He’s human, mostly. He plays with humans, eats human food, sometimes he’ll babysit Onion for me. A real sweetheart.”  
“This planet really ruins everything.” Jasper said, but it was a token insult.

“Maybe it’s just hometown pride, but I think Earth isn’t too bad.” Vidalia said, ruffling Onion’s hair. “I do all my best work here. It’s where the people I care about live.”

“Everyone I cared about died here.”

Vidalia took that statement in stride. “Well, I’m sorry. It hurts, to lose people. But you get more people as you go through life. I got Yellowtail, and my kids, and Amethyst. You…. you’ll figure it out.”

“You guys doing good?” Amethyst asked hesitantly.

“Humans are disgusting.” Jasper informed her, but she seemed almost resigned to the idea.

Vidalia made a face, like, _What can you do? Grumpy aliens are going to grump._

“We all got made by the same planet, and we all turned out pretty great, I think.” Amethyst said. “Homeworld just has a real bad case of sour grapes. They’re kind of sore losers.”

Jasper didn’t respond and Amethyst pressed, “I mean, come on, They put all that energy into making a colony here, grow all those gems, fight for so long for it, it’s got to be a pretty great place. And then we beat them up anyways! Earth is the best. You just haven’t had a chance to see it.”

“I saw enough.” Jasper said and she sounded defeated. Vidalia was patting her shoulder with clumsy, careful sympathy and Jasper didn’t even acknowledge it. It was so annoying. How could she have the nerve to mope around? She had the muscles and the perfect quartz build and a perfect Homeworld upbringing. She had been saved from corruption, given a new goal of sorts. And she just sat around hating herself!

It was so stupid.

Amethyst yanked at Jasper’s hair, forcing her head up, forcing her to look at her. She had to stand on tiptoes to get all up in her face, but it was worth it. Vidalia looked mildly alarmed, which was proof that everyone got a little boring when they grew up. Luckily for Amethyst, gems didn’t grow. She could be reckless until the sun burned out.

“Look,” she said through gritted teeth, “I don’t know anything about Diamonds or your stupid homeworld rules. But this is my planet and I happen to know it’s the best place in the freaking galaxy. And your stupid Diamonds must have known it too, because according to Pearl and Garnet they, like, refused to leave. So maybe stop acting all sad for no good reason and start thinking about why this planet was so great your Pink Diamond got all shattered rather than leave, and why the people here keep kicking your butt. And maybe realize it’s because we’re all _awesome_ and you’re pretty awesome too. Otherwise you’d still be bubbled or the the depths of the ocean or something. Okay?”

“I’d hate to think I dug all my embarrassing maternity photos out for nothing.” Vidalia added. “You have to admit humans are pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Amethyst said. “Earth rules, Homeworld drools.”

Jasper considered this. Her shoulders shook and Amethyst was trying to decide whether to poke her or call for help if she was reverting again, when Jasper sat up a little and pushed her hair out of her face. She was laughing. It was a mirthless sort of laugh, kind of like when Pearl got too stressed except several octaves deeper.

“You don’t know anything, do you?” she chuckled

“Not a thing,” Amethyst answered. “It’s kind of my signature move.”

“I know that it’s dinner time in an hour, and Yellowtail is coming home tonight.” Vidalia said. “Which means I should probably start shopping, or whatever. Amethyst, want to come with? You can ride in the baby seat of the cart.”

“Nah, I should probably walk big, mean and orange home before the gems start worrying. Thanks for the biology lesson though.” She felt a little weird all of a sudden, in Vidalia’s semi-respectable living room with Jasper smiling in a worrying way at everything. She tugged gently at Jasper’s hand and Jasper clambered to her feet.

“No prob.” Vidalia said, “I like having an excuse to show people baby pictures. Bring your cousin around anytime, Onion likes her.”

It took Amethyst a moment to remember her earlier analogy. She flushed. “Yeah, cousin. Come on, cuz.”

She pulled Jasper through the hall and to the front door, Vidalia and Onion saw them off with a wave and a wink, and Vidalia slipped a picture of her and a baby Sour Cream covered in cool whip into her free hand. (Amethyst resolved to find it a place of pride when she actually had a spare moment to rearrange her room)

Jasper was still grinning like a clod. Amethyst got halfway up the street before curiosity prevailed and she just had to provoke her.

“Not that I don’t like happy Jasper better, but if you’re going to have some sort of breakdown could you warn me so I could get Garnet? She’s good at emotional stuff, kind of.”

“Earth this, Earth that,” Jasper said, and her voice trembled, “I forgot how much you Crystal Gems went on about this planet. It almost matches how much the Diamonds hate it.”

Amethyst shrugged. “You should love the place you live.” It almost made you love yourself. It was a start.  
“Gems were shattered for this planet, runt.” Jasper said, her voice more gravelly than normal.

Amethyst crossed her arms. “They’re not going to get any less shattered, so I might as well appreciate it.”

Jasper fell silent. Then-

“Do humans really do all that just to produce more of their model?”

“Yeah, pretty cool, right?”

“And I thought fusion was debasing.”

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it!”


End file.
